


Motley Beasts, Assorted Tales

by AntiGravitas



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Dark!Newt, Ficlet Collection, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, kiss prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-27 00:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 15,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13869312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntiGravitas/pseuds/AntiGravitas
Summary: First kisses, last kisses, dark wizards and foolish aurors in love.An assortment of Gramander ficlets, originally for various kiss and romance prompts on Tumblr.





	1. Frightened Kiss - The Wild is Calling

**Author's Note:**

> These ficlets are broadly based around a Valentine's prompt meme you can find [here](https://absolutelynogravitaswhatsoever.tumblr.com/post/170845682387/valentines-drabbling). Their maximum rating is M so far, and any relevant warnings will be at the start of each chapter.

**1\. Frightened Kiss**

 

Newt belongs to the wild. Percival, city wizard, tamed and domesticated, knowing only the law of the streets and the city halls, can feel the old land in his lover still. It beats in his blood and drums in the rhythm of his magic, quicksilver and erratic, in a pattern only the wild magic understands. It’s a rich, intoxicating mix of laughter and curiosity, a cheek that mocks the carefully constructed rules of Percival’s world and makes a fool of his laws. He loves it, he’s drunk on it, he might die for it, if Newt asked him to.

Newt, who is shy and wary, demanding and brave, all at once, all mixed up with no apology for any of it - none that he means anyway, not really. Not in the deep and unyielding way he loves his beasts. Not with the same sincerity he holds the gaze of a wounded Nundu, or the true kindness with which he lifts a sick Occamy chick up to feel the warmth of the sun on its scales.

Newt dreams in far off places, in a world that turns to its own whims and cares nothing for the rules of city wizards and their petty demands. Percival can hear the forests in his voice when he talks of his travels, can smell the tang of the ocean and feel the touch of the desert sun on his lover’s sun-freckled skin. The power of it is phenomenal, daunting, inexorable, and Percival - collared by printed laws and wearing the silver shackles of MACUSA’s authority - he fears its intentions. When Newt lies in his arms, fingers tracing on Percival’s skin the patterns the waves make against the Côte d'Ivoire, he can hear it calling. He knows that time is short, that every time Newt turns his head and looks off to the sky, or to the distant places only he can see, that it grows shorter still.

And so Percival holds him tight, presses him close, and tries to drown out that siren song with the only love his paper-nicked and law-bound hands can give. He holds him tight and firm, his own dark and jealous strength set against the beauty of the wild. And if his kisses are deep it’s love and desperation and fear too, and the knowledge that some day, maybe not so far off now, he will slip up and the wild will come for him, roaring and triumphant, to take back its own. 


	2. Slow Kiss - A Different Type of Dancer

**2\. Slow Kiss**

The crack and fizz of magic is a taste on the air. It’s sherbert and the blood tang of wet metal where curses strike shields and ricochet away. Percival Graves is a blur of movement: all elegance and pure power from the sweep of his wand to the flick of his fingers as they cast a dismissive rebuttal to someone’s jinx. He moves like a dancer, and Newt is not ashamed to make the comparison as he sits at the very back of MACUSA’s duelling hall and watches his partner train. 

There are six other aurors in the hall, men and women that Newt knows but doesn’t, names and smiles when he comes to the office, but not more than that. In the morning they sit with first coffees clutched tight, and in the evenings they leave for families he’s never met. Now they weave and stagger, faces drawn in fierce grimaces of concentration, run ragged by their master, and shown up for the frauds they are next to his unrelenting strength. Percival presides over them all, driving them before him, cutting aside their spells and forcing them back and down. Newt is aghast at the speed of him, almost unnerved by the ease with which he commands his magic and his aurors. One by one they submit, and Newt feels that strange thrill, deep in his belly, to know that his Percival, calm and cool, unshakeable and teasing, is this man too - a deadly, graceful duelist, a warrior with no equal here. 

Afterwards, when the other aurors have left, defeated but proud even in that - there’s no shame in losing to a man like Graves, just an experience in itself - after this, then Graves comes to him. Shirt sleeves rolled up, he smells of sweat and the musky scent of aggression and victory. His smile is crooked and triumphant, and Newt doesn’t know what to do with the thrill of it. So he smiles too, and fidgets a little where he sits, but he doesn’t rise because he wants Graves to be the one to come to him. And when he does, when Newt is looking up at him, anticipation and the low kick of desire in his stomach, when Percival slides his hand around the base of Newt’s neck and tilts his chin up with his thumb, his kiss is as slow and deep as his magic is swift. 


	3. A Gift - Valentine's Day is for Other People

**3\. A Gift**

Newt doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s day. 

There’s nothing in the holiday for him but memories of never being someone’s secret love. Not for Newt to haunt a pretty suitor’s dreams or have them fainting over his awkward manners and gangly body. And then there’s the embarrassment of knowing that his brother will always and forever remember how a tiny Newt once wrote Valentines to his mother’s hippogriffs. Years later, and there’s nothing but the bitterness of the one Valentine he did receive, and how, even now, he’s still not sure if she meant it. Since she’s fucking his brother these days he suspects probably not. 

Percival doesn’t celebrate Valentine’s day either. 

Very often he receives an abundance of the damned things, and every time it makes his lip curl and his head shake in disbelief. He’d been New York’s most eligible wizarding bachelor for several decades, and had held proudly to that title as both a tool for getting what he wanted and a badge of honour that over the years had made his friends’ amusement turn ever more inexorably towards pity. Percival Graves leads a dangerous, deadly, and unforgiving life, with no room in it for compromise or the distraction of the softer emotions. Which of course meant that when, finally, he did fall - prostrate at the feet of an awkward younger man who seemed more startled than appreciative at first - he fell  _ hard _ . 

So then, both men have met their matches, and in each other they are reflected, resolute and untouchable by foolish traditions. 

Which is why the pocket watch Percival slides into Newt’s hand is something he’s been meaning to give him for some time, because the man cannot be trusted to keep track of time on his own, and if it’s engraved with a little phrase that speaks of time and love and eternity then mind your own damned business that’s just how it came. And if Newt’s breath catches in his throat and he turns away for a moment, and if, after another moment he turns back and presses close to Percival and kisses him as though it’s the last chance he’ll ever get, then that’s neither here nor there and between no-one but the two of them.

 


	4. First Kiss, Last Kiss - The Great Dark Wizard Newton Scamander

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The concept of dark wizard Newt enjoyed a brief resurgence on Tumblr back when I wrote this, and I love reading how people think he'd be. This is my interpretation of him.
> 
> Content Warning: Violence, manipulation, blood, dark magic.

**The first kiss**

 

Grindelwald is wrong about Newt Scamander, but he’s also right, which is in itself a very  _ Grindelwald _ state of being. Newton Scamander is not one of Gellert’s fanatics, but he is a dark wizard. Newt doesn’t have plans for world domination, or the usurpation of the Statute of Secrecy, and he has less interest in the culling of Muggles than a Niffler has in pig iron. What he cares about however are his beasts. In this he is entirely like some patron saint of magical beasts from another, far less likely universe, one where Newt is good, and kind, and true. And as with that unlikely Newt, this dark Newt has love only for his beasts and their protection. Their continued happiness and safety is all that concerns him, and the means by which to achieve these things is something that he will obtain in any way necessary. He’ll buy them with money, or bribery, or blood, whatever promises the most successful outcome.

So when Gellert Grindelwald, down in the cold, clinical brightness of MACUSA’s interrogation chambers, puts to him the idea that he intends to expose wizardkind, to provoke war between the magical and non-magical worlds - mass slaughter in the name of the greater good - the expression of disbelief and confusion on Newt’s face is entirely honest. None of these things suit his purpose, none of them do anything but run the risk of exposing his beasts to harm. Gellert Grindelwald is a fool, and he makes a fool’s mistake when he lays these concepts before Newt Scamander, as though hoping Newt will pick them up and embrace them, perhaps choosing to stand at his side on his crusade like some besotted sidekick. Newt does not do this. Instead he looks into the eyes of the world’s most powerful dark wizard, sees the veiled hope there, and in disgust sets a mental mark besides the man’s name that will one day be the doom of him. 

Months later, chasing rumours and beasts, still hoping to track down that precious wisp of obscurial he still so desperately wants to rescue, Newt does something that once more propels him to international fame. He finds and frees Percival Graves. 

The man is a raging storm of righteous fury, magic turned lightning bright with his wrath, just barely hanging on to the right side of the law in his humiliated outrage, and Newt? By Merlin, Newt is  _ smitten _ . He declares then and there that he will do anything to help this man find his vengeance. And of course, like any true Hufflepuff, Newt is loyal and true to his friends, and utterly dedicated to their wellbeing. (Had he been drawn to power he might have been a Slytherin, but Newt doesn’t seek power for power’s sake, in fact, his only ambition is to be left well alone by anyone not possessed of fur, wings, scales and a little magic glimmering beneath.)

And what of Percival? Percival Graves has no idea who Newt is, and no need of a lover, just as he’s not needed one for the twenty years he’s been MACUSA’s dark-eyed golden boy. What he wants is Grindelwald’s head on a platter, and his life to go back to the strictly regulated success it always used to be. What he gets is a charming, albeit slightly awkward young man, pretty and strangely endearing in a guileless, honest way. Percival stumbles to a metaphorical halt, hesitates, and in the space between noticing him, and hearing what he has to say, loses any chance he has to escape. 

Newt, magizoologist dreamer and loyal, earnest friend; protector of magical beasts and soother of all their fears; dark wizard who will make a city bleed if it means he can save an innocent beast’s life, puts a cautious, gentle hand on Percival’s wrist and says, “I will help you find him.”

And Percival Graves, man of the law, auror of highest repute, sees only that same honest wonder in Newt’s eyes that the man reserves for all his treasured beasts, and so dazzled, willingly and blindly places his trust in him. 

The first time they kiss, it’s in the hidden confines of Newt’s mysterious case, surrounded by his precious beasts, and Percival, surprised at himself, would have drawn away in embarrassment, had Newt not wrapped his arms around his neck and stopped him. “No,” Newt tells him. “Please don’t stop, Percy. We can have this, if you want it? Tell me what you want, and it’s yours. Tell me what will make you happy. I’ll do it, I’ll do anything.”

And of course he will, because Newt looks after his own. And if Percival picks up on this with his sharp auror senses, then he completely fails to see any further than he wants to. He lets himself be drawn in, and drawn down, there amongst the magical worlds of Newt’s private kingdom, and with the rest of Newt’s precious beasts looking on he lets himself be captured.

  
  


**The last kiss**

 

It takes a long time for Percival Graves to understand what Newt truly is. And even then, at the end, he’s still so ensnared by him he hardly believes it. But before all that, before the final stand, before they part for the last time in blood, in the storm, in something broken beyond repair, then they have to get there. And they do it like this.

Newt wants the obscurial. He wants him because the world has been so cruel to the young man, so unfathomably and predictably vicious, and nastiness the likes of which Credence Barebones has suffered is an all too familiar refrain to Newton Scamander. He’s seen it time and again: the ostracisation, the shame where there ought to be nothing but pride, the eventual exile, and it makes his heart grow even darker and more furious. And now Newt has the means to track his prize in the form of another precious beast whose power and influence is vast and reaching. Percival Graves, who adores him and trusts him and who would do quite anything for him, Newt is certain.

Percival Graves wants Gellert Grindelwald. He wants him brought to justice, punished for his crimes, sorry for the humiliation he put Percival through, and preferably handed the death sentence. (Newt wants this too, although, as Percival is still yet to discover, Newt’s form of punishment won’t come in the clean and horrifically gentle embrace of MACUSA’s death chamber, it’ll be something far more terrible and useful.) So when Newt says to him, “I think I know where Grindelwald is, but you’ll have to trust me because the one that’s going to lead us to him is terribly, terribly afraid, and we must be careful not to startle him or this one chance is gone. Lost, Percival.  _ Forever. _ Do you understand? Say you do, say you’ll trust me in this?”

And what can Percival, desperately in love and thirsting for vengeance, do but submit? 

So off Newt goes, taking his auror with him, and they go to all the places that Percival’s rank can grant them access. They travel fast, and they travel light, and sometimes along the way Newt goes off on his own, a kiss his promise that he’ll return, he’ll be back,  _ trust me. _ And he does come back, bringing with him little hints here and there that send them along down the next branch of the path they’re on. (Graves follows him one time and it’s so very lucky that he does. He’s just in time to rescue Newt from a group of wizards of evil intent, men who’ve already slaughtered the people Newt was talking to, and Graves is forced to fight them all off. They flee, but Graves must remain and tend to Newt who is covered in blood, but it’s fine because Newt has slipped down a potion of phoenix tears, and look Percival, all healed, all good, and don’t you  _ ever _ follow me again. Percival can understand pride but he doesn’t understand the depth of Newt’s fury with him. Still, he won’t repent because Newt’s alive tonight because of him. Percival doesn’t understand why they shouldn’t pursue, although Newt is adamant that they not, and nor would he understand the glare Newt sends his way when his back is turned, just one of many things he misses about his precious and gentle young man. We understand though, because of course we know that this same young man had been entirely in control until Percival showed up, for, after all, none of that blood had been  _ Newt’s. _ ) 

Later on Newt will apologise and tell him that he was simply afraid down there in the darkness, and for a moment he thought he was going to lose him, and he can’t have that, Percival, he simply couldn’t stand it. And who knows, maybe that’s the truth. When Percival sets his palm against the base of Newt’s throat and presses him down onto the bed in their cheap motel he can’t see past the sweet kisses and the desperate way Newt’s fingers clutch at his shoulders and pull him in tight. He loses himself in his heat and doesn’t question further.

And this is how it continues, days into weeks, weeks into months, until it’s a year later. Until one day Newt brings Percival to a dark little house, abandoned on the outskirts of a nondescript town, forgotten by time and prosperity. And here he shows him a wisp of darkness that coils amongst the shadows, hesitant and afraid, and he calls this sliver of darkness  _ Credence. _

But Credence isn’t the only darkness in that broken-down old house. Gellert Grindelwald comes out of the shadows too, and he’s as fast as a viper’s strike. He wastes no time on foolish grandstanding, because he knows better than that, has survived far too long to be caught up in that way. There’s nothing but his cold, efficient magic, vicious as sharpened steel, and suddenly Percival is on the floor, bleeding, and Credence is snatched away, and Newt is left holding his precious auror’s body, and using his hands to catch the blood. 

But they survive, all of them. 

And then it’s a week later, and Percival isn’t healed yet, but they have to go  _ now _ because there’s no time left, love, and this is it. This is how we take him down. 

It ends somewhere south of Cincinnati, in the dark and the storm, with the rain pouring down so strong that breathing is almost drowning. And Percival, weak and wounded still, nonetheless stands between Grindelwald and Newt, ankle deep in the mud amidst the torrential rain, and fights. Percival Graves, MACUSA’s finest, an auror from the brightest line of lawbringers, falls that night. But he goes down fighting and he screams at Newt to run, to get the hell away, and Newt- Newt smiles, and he stands alone in the flickering illumination of the lightning that crawls across the sky, not blind to the drama of it, but entirely unimpressed, and he whispers, “ _ Now, Credence!” _

And here is where we must remember what Newton Scamander really is. Newton, who has travelled the world, who has been to the darkest of its corners in his pursuit of the beasts that fascinate him. Newton, who has struck deals with terrible people and even worse  _ things _ to get what he wants. Newton, who will have his way in friendship if he can, bribes if he can’t, or blood if there’s no other choice. Newton Scamander who has saved princes and served queens of far-off lands, who’s brought down great dark wizards that got in his way, and took payment from ancient bloodlines in London back alleys for saving their reputations. And some of those payments have been as dark as the wizards that made them.

Newton Scamander, dark wizard, watches as the obscurial he’s been helping swarms into being, coalescing out of the storm into buzzing power and shrieking grief. He waits as it wraps itself around the throat and face of Durmstrang’s shamed but finest, pulling just tight enough to distract. And then he walks forward and plunges the black blade he carries deep into Gellert Grindelwald’s chest and whispers the magic words. 

Percival Graves is bleeding out on the floor, down in the mud, and so he doesn’t see exactly what Newt does, but he hears Grindelwald scream. He hears the animal panic of it, and smells the cooked meat rot and honey scent of dark magic and he feels the vomit rise in his throat even as Grindelwald’s screaming lifts higher into something incandescent and awful. He will never forget that sound for as long as he lives.

When it’s over, there’s a hand on his brow, and Newt is there. He smells of blood and honey, and it doesn’t make sense, none of it makes sense and  _ what have you done, love _ ? And Newt smiles as he brushes the hair out of Percival’s eyes and says, “Only what I had to, my dear.”

The last Percival Graves sees of Newton Scamander that night is the crooked tilt of his smile as he leans in to kiss him one last time, and over his shoulder a boy, restored and whole, his body flush with the stolen life force of another person. And then Newt leans back, and Percival is too weak from the loss of blood to catch his wrist and pull him back down, and he says, “I’ll see you around, love. My dear one. Time for us to part now. Time for you to go back home.”

He leaves a potion on Percival’s chest, one that glistens in the rain like tears, and burns inside with phoenix fire, and then he’s gone into the darkness, and that strange, pale boy is gone with him.

This is not the last time that Percival Graves sees Newt, but it is the last kiss they ever share. He stumbles home to New York a week later, alive and awake now in a way he hasn’t been in over a year. And when he finds the letter that Newt has sent him waiting on his desk, when he reads the words  _ and now, after all this, I set you free- _ he realises, finally, that he has made a terrible mistake. Newton Scamander, his bright, awkward, beautiful lover, is a dark wizard, and Percival Graves is a fool, blinded by love and lust, and weaker than he’d ever realised. And although he swears it, then and there, that it is over, and that he’ll set all of this right if it’s the last damned thing he ever does, there is a part of him that will always remember the tilt of Newt’s smile and the touch of his skin in the darkness, that will forever yearn for the sweet relief to be found in the gentle warmth of his voice, and the safety that lay in the comfort of his embrace.

 


	5. Drunk Kiss - I See You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration returns; back to writing after illness and road trips. Drunk!Percival is wonderful - there ought to be more of him.

“When did you spot him?” Graves asks one day, and the question brings Newt up short.

They’re lying in the shade of a curling Japanese maple, its branches spreading shelter above them. Sunlight filters down through its leaves, and very occasionally there’s the darting shadow of the little kodama they came here to release back to its native land. It’s been two years since Grindelwald, a year and a half since they’ve been together, and this is the first time Graves has ever asked this question. Newt knows full well that it’s the saké talking, and that Percival has entirely underestimated how much of the rice wine he can drink without feeling its effects.

Newt looks down into his cup and swills the last of its contents thoughtfully. The question is a dangerous one, because so much hangs on its answer. He is not blind to his lover’s concealed anguish; to the pain he’s pushed away so often. Newt knows about the guilt, but he knows about the despair too, and the long-lasting effects of torture and captivity that have cut their scars deep into Graves’ mind. He’s held him in the quiet, and the dark, when sex and touch is the only thing to chase away the fear, and he’s held him afterwards too when he hides his face so Newt cannot see him cry.  

Percival is looking down across the valley, and the sunlight strikes up the colour in his brown eyes and makes them beautiful. His cheeks are flushed with alcohol, and Newt can tell from the look on his face that he’s far away, somewhere two years ago when no-one knew he was gone. Times like this Newt still finds himself capable of anger at the blindness of those who’d dared to call themselves friends of this man. Those closest allies that still hadn’t noticed he’d been taken, month after month.

“I always knew, I think,” he says thoughtfully, carefully, lest he inadvertently confirm some deeper, hidden terror of which Graves will not speak. “And it confused me because I didn’t understand what was wrong, only that  _something_ was.”

There is a moment of stillness, then he thinks Graves gasps, or coughs, but he doesn’t have time to check because the other man’s hand is on his face, his weight heavy across Newt’s body, and his mouth pressed tight to Newt’s own. The kiss is clumsy, and wetly messy. Newt can taste saké and salt, and then he brings up his hand to steady them both before Percival’s unsteady weight sends them both awkwardly sprawling. He lets Percival press into him, then deepens the kiss, slowing it from something hard and desperate to something just as intense for all its slower tenderness.

He kisses him back, putting into each press of his lips every reassurance he can, every ounce of his honest and enduring love. His kiss is a promise, and the clutch of his fingers on the back of Percival’s neck is a confirmation that he sees him, just as he always has, knowing him for who and what he is. Above, hidden in the maple’s leaves, the Kodama begins to sing.


	6. Muggle Zoo - This Is My City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking prompts over on Tumblr, hit up my asks @absolutelynogravitaswhatsoever. 
> 
> I don't write porn, and I don't promise that I won't "interpret" your prompt. ;]
> 
> This was for "Percival takes Newt to Muggle Zoo."

****

They emerge from the subway into the electric glow of a nighttime Times Square, and for a moment, Newt pauses just to look. Even at this hour the roads are busy with cars and trams; people, a tide of humanity, flowing everywhere around him. Percival gives him a second to bask in the sight, and then takes a gentle grip on his elbow. 

“And this is what I was talking about, Newt,” he says in a low voice. “Come.”

Newt feels the tug of another person’s disapparition, and allows the Director to pull him into a side-along, feeling the twist of his magic whipping them up and away. They snap back into being on the top of a nearby building, and for a moment Newt sways, disorientated by the sudden height. Percival slips his fingers fully around the crook of Newt’s elbow and draws him in close so that his back rests against the auror’s chest. 

“Easy,” he murmurs. 

Newt lets himself be steadied, and looks down into the square at the glowing lights and the brilliantly lit billboards. It’s like a strange Muggle version of the great hall at Hogwarts when it’s charmed up for a special occasion, all light and glitter. And people, people are everywhere. Music floats up from all around, mixing into one complex tapestry of sound that manages to be both disjointed and utterly enticing. 

“You see them?” Percival whispers. “All these people. The revellers, the drunks, the beggars. The dancing girl on the corner; she has two children two hours walk away, in bed she hopes but I doubt. Can you feel her thinking of them? The man next to the streetlamp to the left of the theatre, he’s lost everything he owns tonight at the card table, but his wife is already with another beau so he doesn’t care. The woman in the green dress, she’s royalty from Switzerland though no-one but her bodyguards know that. We could go down there and you could dance with her in the club if you like.”

“I’d dance with you,” Newt replies breathlessly, feeling the press of Percival’s chest against his shoulders.

Percival laughs, a low rumble of sound that makes the hair on the back of Newt’s neck stand up. “Later, we can do whatever you want.”

“I’d like that.”

Percival shifts his grip, lowers his chin so that his lips are very close to Newt’s ear. “But do you understand? All these people. The business men, the society ladies, the hopefuls and the deadbeats.”

“A veritable zoo of humanity, one might say,” Newt cuts in.

“Hm,” Percival hums. “You might say that. All of them though, Newt. All tied up in their hopes, their dreams, their fears, and not a one of them aware of what’s right under their noses. And that-”

“Is a shame,” Newt finishes.

“-is the way it  _ must _ be,” Percival continues, and his fingers tighten around Newt’s upper arm. “This is my city, Newt Scamander, and it is under  _ my  _ protection. It may be a hotbed of corruption, but it’s also a home to five and a half  _ million _ souls, and I will not tolerate threats to it.”

Newt breathes out, letting his eyes slip closed and his head fall back to rest on top of Percival’s shoulder. He smiles up at the night sky, feeling the chill air touch his skin and carry off some of the heat in his cheeks. “You know I don’t disagree with you on that,” he offers, and feels Percival’s breath hot on his neck.

“Hn,” Percival snorts softly. “I would rather hope not.”

And then he slips his free hand up Newt’s flank, and around to rest low on his belly, until Newt presses back into him and turns his head to let Percival’s lips find his own, and neither of them say anything more.

  
  



	7. The Scamander Ball - Talking Shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival must go to the ball, and so too must Newt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ace!Percival Graves.
> 
> For the prompt: "Gramander at the ball. The Scamander family throws a ball to introduce Newt to society and the Graves family sends their most eligible bachelor of a son to attend because it's high time for Percival to marry. He's not expecting much tbh."

In all the seventeen years of his adult, already socially debuted life, Percival Graves has not once ever wanted to “go to the ball. _”_   He has no interest in the pursuit of lovers, has in fact never been interested, and he is certainly not going to be interested in some young man who, at twenty-three, is apparently already five years late for his own society debut.

It's not so much the idea of seduction that concerns him, after all there's plenty of fun to be had in the chase, it's what you do with them after you've caught them that leaves him cold. People expect more than he is willing to give, and nothing about the inevitable disappointment and anger at his refusal to provide what they invariably come to expect appeals to him. Still, people are a game, and Percival knows how to play them even if he's not interested in the prize.  And of course, regardless of her son's personal thoughts on the matter, his mother had been immovable. A will as cold and steely as hers can only be bent to, and since Lady Graves had commanded her only unmarried son to attend the debut ball of the Scamander's youngest, then that is what her last eligible bachelor child is damned well going to do.  

No matter his disgust with the whole affair, Percival is perfectly turned out. He wears full formal dress of the modern style, jacket tails long enough to be reminiscent of robes, white tie pinned with the gleaming enchanted sigil of his rank. The room responds to him as it always does, men and women turned to him on all sides, interest and avarice in every gaze. Everyone here wants something, be it political favour or something more carnal. With practised ease he turns aside those he can, and uses his years of experience to endure those he can’t. Eventually though even his carefully cultivated patience wears thin.  

It’s the work of a moment for a wizard such as he to cast a notice-me-not that turns aside all unwanted gazes. Then, exhausted by the whole affair, he makes his escape. Of course he can’t go far, and so he pads quickly up the sweep of the main staircase looking for a quiet upstairs room to elude the crowds. He brushes past people making their way downstairs, tired enough to despise them all, and slips inside a room that looks to be some sort of small library. There’s a dark humour to his mood as he thinks of the rest of the guests, and knows that even if they could see him right now half of them wouldn’t meet his eyes out of fear, and half because they operate under the mistaken assumption that a lowered gaze is somehow more coy and desirable for- oh! Percival draws up short. With a start he realises that this room is not as unoccupied as he’d previously believed. He’s part way through opening the door and beating a hasty retreat when something makes him pause. Head tilted, he presses the door quietly closed behind him, and takes a step into the circle of lamp light. 

 

*

 

“It’s a cherry, Pickett. Come on, sweetheart, you’ve always liked cherries in the past.”

The tiny creature twists his head away, hiding behind upraised claws and squeaks unhappily. Newt represses a sigh and shifts him across to his other palm, fingers sticky with juice. 

“Is that a Bowtruckle?”

Startled, Newt looks up into the curious gaze of a very handsome older man, who seems to be hovering somewhere between curiosity and what, to Newt, appears to be the very obvious desire to flee. Now  _ that’s  _ not a reaction Newt is accustomed to inspiring in people. Cautiously, he shifts Pickett behind the shelter of his free hand, and frowns up at the newcomer. 

“Yes, he is,” Newt replies, a little warily, uncertain what this man could possibly want up here. 

“Remarkable little guys,” the man laughs softly. “I come across them sometimes in my work.”

“Your work..?”

“Ah, well.” All of a sudden the man seems confused. Newt thinks possibly that he’s said something stupid, or too forward, or whatever else it is that makes people reluctant to talk to him. 

The man continues slowly, as though taking a measure of Newt's reaction. “They sometimes get brought in and we have to re-home them.”

On the other hand, the idea of re-homing magical beasts catches Newt's attention immediately. “Really?” he says with sudden interest. “How often?”

For a long second the man hesitates, almost enough that Newt thinks he’s going to make his excuses and leave, but then he glances around - as though there’s anyone else in the room except them - and carefully makes his way over. Newt watches him with interest, noting the way the man dips his gaze and gives him an odd, crooked sort of smile, before lowering himself to the floor to sit next to him.

“Well, there was one time…”

 

*

 

In the end, even once they’ve worked out who they both are, they choose not to do anything about it. They stay together up in the little library and talk a sort of shop that’s somewhere cautiously between reserved and honest, and later on strangely enthusiastic. They don't dance, and they don't kiss or any such thing, but afterwards when the night is old enough that they both ought to re-emerge or risk scandal, Percival slips his card into Newt's hand, and says "Owl me." And for the first time in possibly ever, he really means it.

  
  



	8. Modern Gramander - Down to the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dumbledore and Grindelwald have their famous duel, and everyone else is left to pick up the pieces of their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: "modern gramander + late night drive to the ocean"
> 
> I’ve time-shifted everything, Harry Potter is probably now born in 2050. *Shrug* He can be part of the wizards in space AU instead.
> 
> **CW: PTSD [on Newt’s part], mental trauma, references to sex.**

 

Three months after Austria, Newt still wakes up gasping for breath and drowning in memory. Percival, startled awake beside him, follows when he scrambles from their bed, a clatter of bare feet on tiles as he finds his way to the kitchen to pace, hands raised, fingers tangled in his hair. Percival waits in the doorway until he’s sure Newt is fully awake, and then he moves in slowly to take him in his arms, put his hands on the hard planes of Newt’s shoulders and pull him in close.

He’s hot and sweating and trembling, and Percival can pick out the glint of shattered glass in his memories, bright shards strewn across the courtyard of the Schönbrunn Palace and scattered glimmering in the fountains. He finds he has the scent of smoke and battle magic on his tongue - nothing but bleed-over from Newt’s tangled thoughts - yet when he swallows the taste lingers.

Everything lingers, nothing fades.

 

**x**

 

Four months and the papers are still awash with analysis pieces and opinion columns, character studies and people who claim to have known the great defeated dark wizard once, years ago, when he was maybe still sane.  Newt drowns in it all. He vanishes into his research, locks himself in Percival's town house, and eventually cracks. He flees back to England, to a tiny, anonymous cottage in the south, the location of which only Percival knows. 

A week passes, and Percival wakes to a series of texts in the night:

 

_ 00:27 _

He’s out I saw him I think he’s here where are u?

_ 00:29 _

I’m sorry, ignore. Dreaming. Half asleep.

  
  


**_00:28_ **

**Are you okay?**

**_00:31_ **

**Darling, call me.**

 

_ 00:36 _

Sorry.

 

Percival flies over from New York, a red-eye flight that puts him in at Bristol at six in the morning, and on a train down to Devon by half past. It's only been a week since Newt left the US but when he falls into Percival's arms there's more to the tremor in his body than the mere excitement of reunion. He makes coffee that only Percival will drink, and then he shows him around the tiny cottage, and all the while Percival watches him with dark, worried eyes. Later, Newt snaps at him for it, for daring to look at him like that when there's so many other people worse off, so many other more important things to worry about. Percival buries that anger beneath a kiss that Newt turns fierce, and they end up having sex, rough and satisfying, over the back of one of the sofas. 

Afterwards, Newt throws out the cold coffee and they lie on the rug before the fire, drinking the bottle of wine left for them as a welcoming gift by the landlady and listening to the rain hammer down on the roof.

 

**x**

 

The cottage is six miles from the beach. If you stand in the upstairs window you can see the thin dark line of the ocean in the distance. Percival hires a car, something sleek and expensive, gunmetal grey, and takes Newt driving out to the moors, flying along the roads at speeds faster than any muggle is allowed to drive. No-one sees them, Percival won’t allow it, and he takes Newt down to Bodmin because he’s heard there’s a beast down there that might interest him. They don’t find it, and Percival suspects that maybe Newt is humouring him, but he doesn’t have that far-off look to his eyes all day, and there’s nothing of that acrid, burning smoke in his thoughts.

They have cream teas at a tiny little cafe along the coast road, and when Percival notices Newt staring at him he’s forced to admit he’d been thinking about how many inches these damned things are going to put on his waistline. Newt laughs so hard he almost chokes himself, and that’s fine too, Percival can take a bit of mockery just to hear that laugh again.

 

**x**

 

Five months. Newt has almost finished his second book, a specialist tome on exceptionally rare magical beasts, and Percival knows it’s hurting him. He cooks, because Newt forgets to eat when he’s working, and Percival will not tolerate toast and butter for any meal after 8am. Then, with Newt working upstairs he sets himself up on the tiny round dining table stuffed into the corner of the single downstairs room and holds court with his contacts back in the USA. Who is there to stop him? An extended period of remote working to allow him to deal with a family matter, and damn anyone who dares to question what Newt is to him. It’s 2018 for Merlin’s sake, and he’s Percival goddamned Graves and they owe him this. All of them.

It doesn’t last, something comes up, like it always does. He’ll fly back on Wednesday, show his face for a couple of days around the Woolworth Building, sit in on the Congress for a day, and be back early Saturday morning. He’s not even sure Newt understands him when he tells him over lunch, that strange, half-aware smile of his telling Percival all he needs to know about the other man’s ability to focus right now. Writers.  _ Newt _ . Four days, he tells him. Back in a bit, love.

When he gets back he takes a taxi out to the cottage and finds Newt still in bed, the house wrapped up in wards and defensive charms. Percival wipes a hand down his face, puts his suitcase to one side, and slides into bed next to him. 

“Percival! You’re back! When did you-?”   
  
“It’s Saturday, darling.”

“ _ Is _ it? I think I lost track of time.”

Apologies are offered in the form of inquisitive hands and legs that wrap tight around and grip sweetly, and Percival gives in, just as he always does, weak to everything Newt. 

 

**x**

 

Percival comes awake to the cold, the cottage’s small lounge turned chill now that the fire has died, and it takes him a moment or two to realise that it’s the silence that woke him after all. He pushes himself up off the sofa, setting his book aside and squinting across at the clock above the fireplace. Some time past eleven, and the windows are dark with night. He climbs the creaking staircase up to the bedroom with its tiny desk, and knows before he gets there that something is wrong. 

Newt sits with his head in his hands and from the angle of his shoulders Percival knows that he’s crying. He steps closer, into the glow of the laptop screen, and dark against the glare, black as the smoke of its body he sees:  **_Chapter 12. Obscurials_ **

“Enough,” he says softly, his palm to Newt’s forehead, pulling his head gently back against his chest. He reaches out and closes the screen, and the light shuts off to leave them in shadows dark as wrath and silence. 

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go out.”

 

**x**

 

They drive to the ocean, windows down and heaters on blast across their feet. There’s something slow and hypnotic tripping from the speakers, a deep, soporific beat designed to soothe and uplift. Percival lets it play and cruises them along the coast road, and Newt lolls in the seat beside him, face turned towards the ocean. He rests one palm on Percival’s upper thigh, near the line of his abdomen, and something about the intimacy of it touches a spark of desire deep in Percival’s belly. 

The air smells of seaweed and salt, the moon high and glittering across the crests of the waves. They pull into a sandy car park and Percival cuts the engine. 

“Shall we go down to the water?” Percival asks, and Newt is already half out the door.

The beach is freezing cold, and neither of them are dressed for the biting sea breeze or the clarity of the night. Percival calls up magic into his fingers and wraps it around them both, warming like the glow of a nearby fireplace, and Newt uses it as an excuse to pull off his shoes and paddle in the water. The moon is bright on high, and Percival watches Newt jump glittering waves that rush him like playful terriers. They walk the length of the beach in the water, trousers rolled up past their knees, hand in hand, Newt pulling him into deeper water just to watch Percival struggle to keep his hems dry.

Percival leans back, not nearly as fussed by the damp as he pretends, and uses his weight to reel Newt in. The moonlight makes Newt look paler than he is, and the laughter has come back to his eyes, just as he’d known it would if he could prise him away from that damned melancholy book of his. The wild is what bleeds the sorrow from Newt, like draining a wound of poison, and Percival has never known it to fail.

They stumble back up the shore, hot with magic and the thrill of something illicit but not yet voiced hanging between them. And Percival is just about to form the thoughts into an invite when Newt pulls back and turns his head towards the cliffs in the distance. He leans in, pressing his fingers to Percival’s mouth and hushes the words on his lips. “ _ Listen.” _

It’s a moment before he can hear it over the hammering of his heart and the whisper of the waves. And then, when he does, it’s only because he realises that he needs to listen with all his senses, not just those of his body.

_ “Bucca, _ ” Newt whispers in his ear, breath hot against his skin so that Percival shivers. Above the hiss of the water and the rasp of Newt’s breath he can hear a strange choir, their voices low and almost lost amongst the rush of the ocean. They sound like the rolling of waves out in the channel, or the moaning of the wind in a storm. 

Sea spirits. Mermen. A hundred other names that Newt will know and Percival has forgotten from classes taught far too long ago. “Are they lucky or…?” he asks, wondering if he needs a counter-charm. 

“For us,” Newt says, looping his arms around the back of Percival’s neck, and pressing in close. “Very rare. Almost extinct, you know.”

“Hm,” Percival hums, uninterested in beasts and focussed only on the heat of the man in his arms. “Rare, yes.”

Newt laughs, the noise almost lost amidst the breaking of the rollers, and Percival thinks  _ you are gorgeous _ and then Newt’s mouth is upon his and they’re falling over backwards together. They lose themselves in each other, where unfinished books and lost friends and legendary duels have no place beneath the high moon and the dark, clear skies.

 

**x**

 

Newt publishes his second book on the tenth month after the final battle, and when the press comes rushing in on all sides to talk obscurials and old schoolteachers and all those terrible ties to the past, Newt is ready for them again, Percival at his shoulder, a silent, watchful guardian. The press are vicious, worse than vultures, but there are some who want nothing more than to talk about the beasts. Those people are the small sparks of light amongst the shadows, and they’re made brighter for their rarity. 

There’s talk of another sanctuary somewhere in the Midlands, or Wales perhaps, and programmes of education and outreach. It’s progress, sudden and fragile and dependant on the shameful sacrifices of people that should never have had to endure what they did, but maybe it means that there’ll be fewer such cases in the future, even if none at all has always been the dream. 

Newt moves back to New York for a spell, and Percival is glad to have him where he can keep an eye on him. He feels controlling and overbearing for the relief his proximity brings, but ultimately finds it hard to care. Newt  _ can _ look after himself, but why go back to worry and sleepless nights when Percival can just make things easy for them both. Even so, Newt has work of his own, and the sanctuary’s funding to oversee, and even if he’s not out in the field as much these days being tied to one spot will never stop making him turn a little mad with wanderlust. Percival, braced for it, but still hating it even after all these years, gives him his blessing and lets him go. He knows, as they both do, that eventually Newt will find his way back to him.

The months pass, and then the years. The memories do, somehow, fade. Newt never speaks to Dumbledore again in person, though he sees him around occasionally. News reaches him that there’s a painting of him hung on one of the staircases at Hogwarts now, that it’s a good likeness, and that sometimes he’s holding a niffler but mostly he’s chasing it around in the background. It makes Newt cringe. Author events and book intros are hard enough to deal with, paintings hung in his honour are unbearable. He decides never to think of it, and anyone that knows him well understands that they mention its existence at their own peril. 

Finally, one day in spring, he goes back to Vienna, Percival at his side, and stands in all the spots that terrible duel took place. The city has gone back to normal, filled with people, muggles and magical folk alike, more magical folk than ever before in fact, turning the place into some kind of pilgrimage spot. It makes Newt angry, and bitter, and then just sad. He lets Percival take him away, and they never return to Austria for the rest of their lives. 

Sometimes he still dreams of broken glass and a mad wizard, ranting before a gleaming palace; of final duels that changed the world but never quite ended for any of those involved. But now when he wakes at night it’s to Percival too, also still there, with his warm hands and solid, patient presence, the only shadow Newt needs these days.

 

  
  
  
  
  



	9. Fluff Prompts - Have your cake and eat it too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have your cake, and wake up with it in the morning too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the world is being relentlessly awful at the moment, I took fluff prompts over on Tumblr. 
> 
> The only rules are fluff, feel-good, drabble/ficlet length, and that they be Gramander, Newt or Graves-centric.

 

 

Anon prompt: _gramander, eating cake_

Newt wouldn’t call himself a risk-taker, despite what Tina might think and occasionally be moved to say. As far as he’s concerned the things he does are all perfectly reasonable within the scope of what he’s trying to achieve. Which is why when he puts the box on the table and opens it up for Percival to see what’s inside, he’s not at all concerned that the man will think to ask exactly  _where_ Newt got them from. That’s going to be Newt’s little secret.

He watches as Percival’s eyes go bright with poorly concealed glee, although the rest of his expression maintains its usual professional cast. Newt knows though, oh how he  _knows_. 

“On a day like this I thought you might like one of these. Just for a treat,” he says, and Percival’s eyes flick up to meet his.

“On a day like this?”

“Oh,” Newt shrugs. “Any day really. I know you like them.”

Percival reaches into the box and dips his finger into the soft butter-cream coating of one exquisite cupcake. “I like  _you_ ,” he murmurs, and swipes Newt’s nose with his sugar-coated finger.

Newt blushes a deep shade of red, and Percival flicks his eyebrows in amusement, then slowly licks the icing from his finger, as thoroughly wicked as only Newt knows he can be.

 

* * *

 

 

 Fluffyhojo:  _How about some morning cuddles for Gramander (with or without beasts involved ;))_

 

Percival wakes up to something soft and heavy draped all across his lower body. For a long, sleep-addled moment, he simply lies in place, eyes closed, and luxuriates in the warmth of the comforter. And then the comforter moves, and Percival’s eyes flick open.

_“…Newt!”_

It takes no small amount of coaxing and not a little soothing on Newt’s part to get the Marmite, Barnabus, to float up and off Percival, and to keep Percival from panicking and just lie still while the beast is allowed to extricate itself from him. ( _Tentacles,_ Newt! _Tentacles!)_

“Well,” Newt shakes his head, “I did tell you not to fall asleep there, you know what Barnabus is like. He’ll come down and cuddle anything he thinks is warm!”

Marmite sent on its way, Newt takes his beloved’s arm, closes up the shed, and leads him off and up to bed, just as the clock strikes two. 

The next time Percival wakes it’s to the warmth and weight of his husband pressed up close along his side, secure in their bed. This right here is the only type of morning cuddling he approves of. He smiles, presses a kiss to Newt’s untidy mop of a fringe, and slides an arm around him to draw him in even closer.

 

  


 


	10. Fluff Prompts - Sightseeing and Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beach trips and Barcelona, or, sight-seeing in all its forms.

powerbloggerjung: _since it’s summer, maybe percival and booty shorts at the beach + newt ogling at his boyfriend? :D_  

Of course! So…1920s bathing costumes for men. [Since shorts, with top, or a sortof one-piecey thing appears to be what they wore](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2Fca%2Fe0%2F14%2Fcae014b50d5ba6ae48c0a353421b3fc3.jpg&t=YjcxMTg1YzE1YTc2YjgzZTQzYWYyMGE5YWY5OWQ0Yzc0NzFiYTQ3NixIREwxSjE3bA%3D%3D&b=t%3ANm5JYYXQIUtKXpU8Zj8VZA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fabsolutelynogravitaswhatsoever.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F175313587112%2Fis-it-okay-to-ask-for-a-drabble-since-its), I consider it only a tiny slip of the imagination to get from there to booty shorts. ;] 

—————————————————————————————

There’s a cool breeze sweeping in off the Atlantic, and Percival stands, one hand shielding his eyes from the light, letting its touch lift the heat from his skin. The ocean glitters beneath the blaze of the midday sun, and he squints out at the horizon, watching the Shimmergulls dive and swoop in a flurry of colour. The feather-tips of their elegant, white wings are edged with reds and golds, emerald green and sapphire blue, and as they wheel on high the sunlight filters through the transparent vanes of their feathers and makes of them a chromatic riot. 

The magical gulls are the reason for their visit today; Newt, intent on securing a glimpse of the birds for his next book, and Percival, with a few days vacation to spare, happy enough to come along and lend the authority of his presence to the trip. If nothing else his signature was required to allow lawful access through the wards to the sanctuary. The fact that he came in person to give it, and brought his bathing gear with him is beside the point. 

The other benefit of being on a beach within the bounds of a restricted access sanctuary is just that - the place is deserted save for them and the gulls. Percival stretches, flexing his shoulders and enjoying the freedom of simply not being in the office. The sun is a delightful warmth all over his body, and his bathing suit, newly acquired in the latest style, appears to fit appropriately. Which is rather good, because although Percival’s no prude and has a healthy pride in his physical appearance, the cut of the newest style sits somewhat higher up the thigh - up the damn buttock if he’s entirely honest - than he’s used to. 

In the distance there’s a flash of vivid pink and Percival squints. “I’ve not seen a pink one before, Newt. Are they common or is that just the angle of the light? Newt? …Newt?”

He turns and finds his boyfriend sitting on the beach towel behind him, blinking distractedly up at him. Newt has the look of someone recently broken from their pleasant reverie, and from the angle his eyes had been at when Percival had first turned, he’s entirely sure he’d not been watching the birds. 

“ _Newt._..” Percival laughs low and slow, deeply amused and made only a touch self-conscious by his boyfriend’s frank interest. 

“My eyes are up here,” he teases gently.

Newt, predictably, turns a brilliant shade of crimson beneath his sun-hat, although his answering smile is anything but innocent.

“Sorry,” he says cheekily. “There’s just so much plumage on display today…”

Percival laughs in shocked delight at his unusual display of daring, and then dives down onto the beach towel to allow him a closer look. 

Far overhead, the Shimmergulls  wheel and play, for now entirely forgotten.

 

* * *

 

numbersarepeopletoo:  _Vacationing gramander, they get lost somewhere in a backalley in Barcelona._

 

“You know,” says Newt, turning the map over in his hands and peering at it intently. “I think we’ve come too far to the east.”

“Really?” Percival asks mildly, looking upwards to where the sky is a narrow blue strip between the buildings. The walls of the back alley lean in above them on either side, the stonework ancient and pitted with history. A lick of his magical senses across the cobbles whispers history layered in centuries back at him and he breathes the city’s memories in, tasting the difference in fascination. Magical Barcelona speaks a far different language than magical New York, in so many ways.

Newt sighs. “Well, this is why I don’t really bother with maps usually. Never can get the blasted things to work.”

“Hmm,” Percival agrees, and saunters up to rest his chin on Newt’s shoulder.  He peers at the map, and snorts softly. “Turn it ninety degrees.”

“Really? Oh! Wait, no, that’s not right. Oh, you’re being a-, Percy…”

Percival smirks and slides his arms around Newt’s waist, squeezing lightly until the other man wriggles. “We’re tourists, Newt. Tourists are supposed to get lost.”

“Hm, yes, but…”

“Well, we don’t have anywhere to go, do we?” he asks lightly, giving Newt a knowing, sideways look that makes him fidget. “Unless…”

“No! Nowhere,” Newt says, making a show of folding up the map.

Percival can see his cheeks starting to pink despite his efforts to hide behind his fringe. “Unless…you had somewhere in mind. You didn’t, did you, Newt?”

“No!”

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?” Percival persists, putting his mouth close to Newt’s ear.

Newt squirms away, laughing, “Yes!”

“Hmm,” Percival hums. “Because if you were looking for that exotic Puffskein dealer, I’m sure we passed her door four streets ago…”

“I wasn’t-! Percy!”

It’s a good thing their winding back alley is deserted, because Newt’s laughter rises to a hysterical yelp as Percival’s fingers find his sides and tickle him unmercifully. 

Spluttering and laughing, the two of them chase one another like children along the alley, and the tiny street rings with their amusement, and echoes to the sound of their retreating footsteps.

 


	11. Fluff Prompts - Happily Ever After.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark days lead inevitably towards the light. Or, happily ever after, despite the odds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon _For Graves - please can you do something with everything turning out alright in the end? Newt or the aurors find him and they live happily ever after?_
> 
> Or, anon hits on my absolute most favourite trope in the world. Happily ever after.

It’s raining in New York, the December nights long and dark despite the burn of the electric lights in the city that never sleeps. Percival Graves walks the distance from the office to his home, and his steps are slow and measured only because he makes them so. The rain beats on the cloth of his umbrella, and despite its shelter the damp creeps inexorably into his muscles, into his bones and sinews, making his body ache where the old scarring still lies. December is a bad month for Percival Graves. The long nights bring back bad old memories, and repeat them in nightmares that somehow never tire of reruns.  
  
It was on a cold December evening, on the first day of the month in fact, that he made his terrible mistake. Two months of hell it had led to, and a lifetime of regret and fury and scars that don’t fade. Percival closes his eyes against the memories, draws in a breath of filthy city air, and doesn’t let the darkness take him.  
  
By the time he arrives home, his internal battle is at a stalemate. His mood is grim despite himself, and the long winter night seems like a comment on his state of mind. He lets himself into his grand town house, in the most expensive residential part of the city, and when he looks up from setting his umbrella in the stand, it’s only then that he knows he’s home.  
  
Newt greets him in the hallway, bringing the scent of roasting beef with him, the taste of wine on his mouth when Graves leans in for a kiss. The sound of voices spills out from the open door at the end of the hall, and Percival raises an eyebrow in that direction.  
  
“Tom and Sophia. Emmanuel’s here like he said, and Tina as well, but just for tonight,” Newt says, slipping his arms around his neck. “Welcome home.“  
  
There had been a time, after his sister and her family had moved back to the countryside to take over the ancestral home, during which Graves had lived in the town house on his own. A beauty of modern architecture, bought by his parents with the money they’d shrewdly invested in no-maj gold mines, the place had been made for an extensive family and their servants. Graves had lived in it alone, like one of the wizards of old hidden away in his private tower, a bastion of solitude in the middle of one of the most populous cities in the world. He’d closed up the top two floors, used but one of the four bedrooms on the second, and entertained no-one but himself in the downstairs sitting room. It had been a lonely life, but he’d not noticed it at the time.  
  
After Grindelwald, but mostly, if he’s honest, after  _Newt_ , that had changed.  
  
He doesn’t even really understand how it came to be, but these days Graves’ house is a far cry from the cold and empty shell of the past. Newt fills it with his presence, with the accoutrements of his profession and his passion. There are three Kneazles, the licenses for which even Percival had agreed were thoroughly tedious to obtain; four Puffskeins, rescues all so covered under the rescue and rehabilitation laws; and a nest of Salamanders that live in the now ever-burning fireplace, present under the dubious banner of a research exemption.   
  
And it’s not just the beasts. There’s people too, and this is Percival’s doing. The pain of being replaced, of others not noticing it, had shocked him to the core. To his shame, he’d almost broken beneath the unaccustomed weight of wanting someone to care. And then afterwards, filled with spite for every vicious, self-destructive thought that tried to drag him down, he’d picked himself back up and got on with fixing it. Because that’s what Percival does. He’s stronger than everyone else, so he can take the beatings. He survives when other people don’t. He fixes what others can’t, and he doesn’t give in, because he’s Percival thrice-damned Graves and no-one,  _no-one_  is taking that from him.   
  
Thus Percival’s house, so big and so empty, is open these days. His aurors, his team, come to visit, and sometimes they stay and they too fill the place with their presence. In the beginning it was mostly the new staff he’d drafted in to replace the ones Grindelwald had poisoned, and of course they’d been easier because they had no experience of his previously distant attitude. But in watching them and watching him, his older aurors had started to show cautious interest in the informal research meetings he’d allowed to take place in his library. Percival Graves has a lot of old tomes on very specific areas of magical law enforcement and if people want to come study them, well, these days they’re welcome. They get coffee and sometimes he’ll engage his visitors in shop talk, and sometimes he leaves them alone, but the point is the house is alive again.   
  
It had gone on like that for months, and slowly shop talk turned to casual chat, distance to familiarity, and now people don’t come for advice found in books, they come for the advice only he can give them. Sometimes it’s even work-related. Other times there are holidays and families oceans distant, or no families at all, and no-one ever needs to outright say why they’re  _here_ and not  _there_ , but Graves’ house is open, and these days the people that turn up in his kitchen aren’t just aurors they’re  _friends_ too.  
  
And now it’s Christmas again, and in the darkest part of Percival Graves’ year, his house is full of people and light, food and laughter. He basks in the warmth of it, wine glass in hand, leaned back in his chair with Newt’s hand on his thigh hidden beneath the table, and his friends, his  _friends_ shouting insults and laughter over his kitchen table at one another.  
  
Later, when the house is quiet, he lets Newt lead him up to bed, and stands obediently as he’s undressed in careful, gentle movements, his heart filling up with something he cannot name, an emotion that trembles in his limbs and makes his breath come short. It might be desire, it might be love, but it feels like both and maybe neither. Newt draws him down into his arms and presses them together, surrounded by the warmth of their bed, and the heat of each other’s bodies. Percival lets himself be lost in touch, in kisses, and finally, in the sharp, shocking pleasure of release as he presses himself desperately into the tight curl of Newt’s fingers.  
  
It’s been eight years since Grindelwald, and the world is marching on to whatever its future holds. The winter is drawing in, dark and grim, but here, in the heart of his home, there is warmth and love and safety. Here, the world no longer turns, and the shadows are no longer welcome.  
  



	12. Travel fics - River Boats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prague in the summer.

Prague is an old city, and Percival can feel its history whispering through the streets, a never-ending echo of times gone by, picked up and repeated back between the buildings like the reverberation of a distant bell. Sometimes, amidst the babble and chatter of the tourist crowds he thinks he can hear other voices, other people from times long past - spirits or simply the anima locus turning its eye on him, he’s not sure. They’re gone as soon as he tries to focus on them.

“What are you thinking?” Newt asks, and Percival feels him settle beside him at the balustrade, shoulder brushing his own. They look out across the Vltava, the midday sun making the river glitter golden, the heat of it burning even so early in the year.

“That we should take a trip on the water,” Percival smiles, and Newt hums happily in reply. “And that you-” Percival reaches across to pull the sunhat out of Newt’s hands and settle it firmly on his head “-should be wearing this and not holding it.”

“I’m wearing a balm I made up!” Newt protests.

“Yes, I can smell it,” Percival replies, unimpressed.

“It worked in Borneo, it’ll work perfectly well here too! Honestly, Percy, you should try some, it’s very good.”

“I don’t burn,” Percival kisses him lightly, quickly, on the tip of his nose. “And it still smells awful.”

He leaves Newt frowning and sniffing suspiciously at his forearms, and goes to hire them a paddle boat.

Later, relaxing on the river, one foot trailing over the side of the boat, Percival looks down into the water and blinks at the flash of colour that shoots by beneath the surface. Frowning, he leans over the side, squinting to catch a glimpse of what it had been, and almost jumps out of his skin when Newt surfaces from beneath the boat right next to him.

“You fell asleep,” Newt grins, water running down his cheeks and dripping from his fringe. He slicks it back with one hand, as Percival steadies himself on the edge of the paddle boat.

“What the hell are you-”

“You’re right,” Newt says, “That balm does pong a bit. You don’t notice it when you’re the one  wearing it though, so I thought I’d wash it off.”

“Newt…” Percival leans down over the side of the boat and wraps a hand round the back of Newt’s neck, leaning down to kiss him quickly on the lips. “Get back on here.”

“How about you get down here…?”

Percival’s amused smile fades quickly to alarm as Newt’s grin turns wicked and he reaches up to grab hold of Percival’s arm.

“…don’t you dare. Newt!  _Newt!_ ”

Newt dares, and the enormous splash of water disturbs the flight of lesser Horned Serpents that had been gathering beneath the paddle boat, drawn by Newt’s sparkling serpent lure. As Percival comes back up for air, spluttering and reaching for his trickster of a partner to dunk him under the water, they twist as one and, scales glimmering a royal blue in the brilliant afternoon sun, disappear into the depths of the Vltava leaving the two wizards to their games.


	13. Travel fics - Dragon's Den

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graves can’t handle heights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want an idea of the heights involved [I got pictures](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/124855). (If you have a Pillowfort, hit me up, I’m hoping for more Gramander fans to interact with over there!)

 

Despite having studied the art since he was old enough to utter the correct incantation, broom flying is not one of Percival Graves’s favoured pastimes. Nonetheless he’s a reasonably accomplished flyer, and of course his chosen career requires a certain basic level of proficiency in the skill to be counted as capable. Naturally, his ingrained pride has played no small part in the honing of his abilities. Still though, they’re an awful long way up right now, and despite the fact the air is reasonably calm for such heights, there’s still enough late evening light left for him to be able to appreciate the truly stomach-churning drop yawning below his hanging feet.

He feels his fingers tighten almost impossibly further around the shaft of his broom, the fast flutter of his pulse in his head and belly making him feel strangely faint.

“...Newt.”

“I’m fairly certain it’s just a rumour. Then again, Muggles do come up with the most interesting stories sometimes, despite how they can be about magic. As you know!”

Newt swoops in closer to the cliff-face, searching for clues that only he understands, and for a second the thought crosses Percival’s mind that he’d actually be quite relieved if the damned dragon were to leap out at them now, for it might offer some distraction from the gradually increasing sense of vertigo he’s experiencing. There’s a logical part of him that fully understands they’re not even half a mile up from the slopes below, and that’s a very well-informed part of him that read up on the location as soon as Newt had mentioned he wanted to come here. There’s also another animal part of him that’s currently howling incoherently in the back of his head about the fact that if he loosens his grip for just a fraction of a second he’s going to plunge and keep on plunging to his inevitable death smeared across the lush fields far below.

“ _Newt_.”

“I’d just like to check along the south face again! There’s a cave system up there that’s not really accessible unless you’re flying, though I’ve seen some people make quite impressive climbing attempts.”

There’s a dragon on Mt Pilatus apparently. Or there had been four hundred years ago according to Newt. The place has been devoid of dragonkind for several centuries now, although excited rumour amongst certain of Newt’s social circle has brought the pair of them haring across the world to Switzerland - Newt because of his reputation, Percival because it had seemed like such a good opportunity at the time. He’s never been to Switzerland before. Right now he wishes he’d never come.

“Newt…”

“...Percival?”

For the first time Newt seems to notice his partner’s discomfort. Percival can see him hanging in the air a stone’s throw away, and the expression on his face is probably concern, but in the ever-deepening gloom he really can’t make the details out and _like fuck_  is he going to let go long enough to draw his wand and light it up to find out. The wind buffets him, making his broom dip and sway, a movement that wouldn’t be all that much of a problem were he say, thirty feet off the ground. Add several hundred feet to that count and it’s an entirely different matter. Off in the far distance the lights of Lucerne are burning brightly, and the pattern of them flung out across the valley is both a beautiful and terrifying reminder of just how high up they are.

“Percy...love?”

“Newt, I think-” He doesn’t finish his sentence. As ridiculous as this is - he’s a goddamn  _senior auror_  for Merlin’s sake! - he can actually feel himself trembling, and the thought that if he makes any sudden movements his muscles are going to give out and betray him into letting his grip slip is the foremost thought in his mind. The animal part of him is still howling in blind terror, enough that the accomplished auror it normally wears as its face to the world is starting to look a little like a bad fit.

“Righto,” Newt says softly. “I think we can go down and land perhaps, don’t you? Come on, there’s a spot over there.”

Being led like a lamb - or a whimpering first-time flyer - back to the ground, even as gently and kindly as Newt does it, should be enough to prick Percival’s pride and make him feel foolish. In actuality he’s simply deeply, unashamedly grateful to be taken care of. Newt leaves him on a wide ledge, sitting with his back to the rockface, and diplomatically heads off alone into the dark in search of his dragon. Percival lets him go, watching the far-off lights of the city, and trying hard not to think about how long it’s going to take them to get back down. (Not very long if you lose your grip, the animal inside suggests unhelpfully.)

In the end they make it back to Lucerne in the early hours of the morning. The streets are empty but they apparate from the outskirts of town straight back to their hotel, both of them cold and Percival deeply exhausted from the strain of the descent. In the hotel room Newt pulls out his camp stove and boils them up water for tea, while Percival sits grimly, and, now safe back on the ground once more, beginning to feel the first flush of embarrassment.

“Here we go,” Newt says softly, handing Percival a steaming mug of tea. “Sorry to drag you all the way out there for no reason.”

Percival takes the mug, then pauses and sets it aside. “I hesitate to say I’m sorry you didn’t find your dragon, but…”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Newt finishes for him.

“Hm,” Percival replies.

“And I really am sorry to drag you all the way up there, I didn’t realise…” Newt trails off, shamefaced. He’d not even considered the possibility that Percival might have reservations about flying straight up the side of mountains, which he supposes just goes to show how badly out of practice he is with people. Even the ones he’s supposed to know the best.

“Yes, well,” Percival says darkly. “Honestly that was a bit of a shock to me too. Illinois isn’t exactly known for mountains, so it’s not really something I’ve ever come up against.”

“You come from-?” Newt sounds surprised and curious, their relationship still young enough that such tidbits of information are yet to be uncovered.

“Mm, originally,” Percival hums, then reaches up to rest his hands on Newt’s hips. “Now look. Come down here, I’m still cold.”

“Are you?” Newt asks in alarm, visions of unnoticed hypothermia flashing through his head.

“Well, only a little,” Percival admits, but by that point he’s already managed to draw Newt down into his lap. The man’s thighs fit snugly around his waist, and he’s a warm, heavy weight across Percival’s legs. Newt rests his forearms on Percival’s shoulders, mouth canting into his familiar lopsided smile as the other man’s hands slide up his flanks and spread their fingers wide across the planes of his back.

“I am sorry you didn’t find your dragon,” Percival murmurs. “I know how much you like the beasts.”

Newt shakes his head and brings the fingers of one hand up to stroke the back of Percival’s neck, making the other man shiver and flex his fingers against Newt’s shoulder blades. “Seem to have found something better down here anyway.”

Percival’s answering chuckle is made low with surprise by the unexpected flattery, and pleased, Newt leans in to kiss him. Dragon or not, the day will not be a complete loss he thinks as Percival’s clever fingers untuck the hems of his shirt and find soft, warm skin below. Whatever anxieties remain in his partner’s mind, Newt intends to fully do away with them. Breaking their kiss, he places gentle fingertips beneath Percival’s chin and presses until the other man turns his face further upwards. Newt takes a moment to admire the dark gleam of desire in his eyes, and then breathless, presses kisses down on him, hot and deep, until both of them forget anything but each other.  

 


	14. The Scamander Ball - Afterwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival had thought the chance encounter at Newt's debut ball a one-off. Percival is wrong. (You can find part 1 at ch.7)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A birthday request for @trensu. 

 

 

The ball leaves Percival with a troublesome desire to meet up again with the intriguing younger man, which in itself isn't unusual - a true  _connection_ with another person is a rare enough thing that wanting to keep it going is entirely reasonable. It's the strength of the inclination that takes him by surprise. Newt is charming. He has an innocence to him that's nothing to do with gullibility and all to do with a simple disinterest in manipulation that is to Percival both refreshing and desperately enticing. He wants to sit down with this man and listen to him talk. He wants to hear about his travels and his studies and this book he says he's writing. He wants the man to smile at him like he did when they sat together in that little library, the Bowtruckle crawling across their knees. He wants-  
  
What he wants isn't going to happen, and Percival has been playing this game long enough to know that fooling himself into thinking it could is a short road to disaster. Instead he goes back to work, puts the ball and the young man as far out of his mind as he possibly can, and carries on as always in defence of the great American public. Besides. Newton Scamander lives across the ocean, and international portkey privileges or not, Percival can't exactly abuse his professional travel rights in pursuit of a friendship, no matter how rare or true he might consider it.  
  
Newt, true to  _his_ nature, does not help matters. He owls Percival the very next day, the bird finding its intended recipient just as Percival is casting off his robes to climb into bed at his plush London hotel. It’s only just gone ten but he's due out early the next morning, having remained an extra day to mingle with some of the local officials and do some routine networking. Surprised, he holds the unfolded note in his hands, scanning its few lines again and again.  
  
_"Hello Percival. I just wanted to say thank you for the conversation yesterday. I don't normally write owls or meet anyone truly interesting at balls, and I hope I'm not overstepping myself but I really enjoyed meeting you. I'd like to stay in touch, if you don't mind, and you're not too busy. Perhaps you could tell me if you come across any magical beasts during your work, and I might be able to give you some recommendations - if you need them of course._  
Anyway, I hope this finds you well.  
Yours,  
N.S."  
  
Percival feels his stomach flip, and thinks  _oh no_... but he still can't keep the silly smile off his face, and he goes to bed that night with a heart lighter than it has been in a very long time. So what if all this crashes and burns? He'll deal with anything bad that comes up - if it ever does -  _when_ it comes up. Newt will consider this a simple friendship and Percival will take what he can from that and make the most of it. Yes, that's what he'll do.  
  
There follows six months of letters, back and forth across the ocean, and it's a damned good job both of them come from money or the rate at which they exchange owls would have bankrupted less fortunate men. Even so, a month in, Percival takes his courage in hand and buys a pair of enchanted notebooks, one of which he sends across the ocean to Newt, and from that point on they abandon owls and simply write one another at any time of day when the mood takes them.  
  
They talk about beasts sometimes, but not as often as Percival had expected. Newt talks about his work for sure, but there's a careful obscuring of certain facts amidst his chatter that Percival knows is most likely done in recognition of Percival's status and nationality. MACUSA are disapproving in the strongest terms of magical beasts outside of conservation areas, and even if Newt could trust him entirely he's still not going to set down in writing a treasure trove of detailed information on where to locate such valuable creatures. Percival understands. And of course it means they’re free to talk of other things too. Although neither of them consider themselves gossips, it's inexplicably good to have someone on the same wavelength to talk to about people and their foolishness, and some of the things that go into those magical notebooks would cause both of them great embarrassment were they to come to light publicly.  
  
The weeks pass, then the months, and the two of them talk beasts and gossip and weather and cookery and travels to far-off places, and family and philosophy and every other thing that comes to mind. But they don't talk of betrothals or suitors or love. Percival thinks to himself that maybe he's won, and if the prize isn't perfect it's still the best he's going to get, because he'll take solid friendship over the other man's eventual disappointment in him. He has the man's attention, and he has his friendship, and experience has long taught him to take what he can get and make the most of it.  
  
So when Newt writes to him one cold November morning to say that he's planning a trip to the US, and would Percival possibly consider giving him a few pointers for getting through customs with the least fuss, and perhaps maybe they could meet up because really he'd love to see him in person again, Percival almost spills coffee over the notebook in shock.  
  
He stares down at the words curling their way across the page in scruffy black cursive and realises that the hand that holds his pen is trembling just slightly with an emotion he cannot name. Fear? Excitement? Both? Isn't he a little old for this? He frowns down at his hand and is gratified to realise that the tremble is barely perceptible, the thrill in his veins a buzz that's only just the right side of pleasant. He clears his throat, wipes his mouth with the fingers of one hand and draws in a steadying breath.  
  
_"Newt,"_  he writes.  _"Sounds like a plan. I look forward to seeing you again..."_

And, goddamnit, he does. He  _really_ does.

 

 


	15. The Scamander Ball - Awkward Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good idea, bad timing. Or, is there ever a good time to joke about marriage?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Trensu, who wanted fake dating/fake married and got this instead. 
> 
> Part 1 of the ace!Percival story is at ch.7, part 2 is at ch 14.

“We could get married.”  
  
Newt drops the comment into the silence of the drawing room and Percival almost chokes on his wine. It takes him a minute or two to get his breath back during which Newt regards him with concern, wand at the ready should he be required to intercede. Tears streaming down his face Percival waves him away and dabs at his mouth with a handkerchief.   
  
“I beg your pardon?” he manages to rasp after a full minute.   
  
Newt colours slightly, the tips of his ears turning a delicate shade of pink. “Well, I didn’t mean  _literally_  of course. I just meant, well, you know.”  
  
“I-”  _I really don’t, Newt,_  Percival thinks, mind racing wildly. They’ve known one another for nine months, and in that time they’ve spent only a scant handful of days in each other’s company, despite near funding the budget for the International Owl Service by way of their overseas letters alone. Thank Merlin for enchanted notebooks. Never in all that time has Newt made mention of romance, let alone implied any kind of interest in Percival himself beyond friendship. Percival stares at the other man, trying to work out if this is some poorly executed joke. “I’m really not sure I follow.”  
  
Newt’s expression has turned to one of sheer embarrassment, his cheeks settling into a shade of flaming red that Percival might have found amusing had he not been so thoroughly confused. “I just meant,” Newt tries. “Well, you said before I came over, you said your mother was pushing you to entertain the Lady Houghton and that you would prefer not to marry too far outside your social circle, which I took to mean that you find her lacking in some way.”  
  
“-I didn’t say  _lacking,_ ” Percival hedges, unwilling to speak ill of a woman whose sole fault lies in his complete disinterest in her.  
  
“You said that she’s an insufferable bore actually,” Newt reminds him, only half apologetically.   
  
Percival shifts uncomfortably in his seat and wishes Newt’s memory wasn’t quite so good sometimes. “Yes, well,” he says. “All I really meant was she and I have very little in common. Katherine is a fine woman, I’m sure. I’m just not sure we’re suited to one another.”  
  
Newt is eyeing him with an intensity that Percival doesn’t like the look of, and he’s once more gripped by the sudden, crippling fear that should Newt ever work out his secret then all that they’ve built up between them is going to be completely ruined. He feels his mouth go dry and his brow draws down into a frown.  
  
“It’s just that there’s been so many Lady Houghtons now that I’d rather come to the conclusion that you don’t  _want_  to get married,” Newt says slowly. He seems to be waiting for Percival to take offense or to snap at him from the way he’s only half-looking at him, and Percival experiences a momentary surge of panic. Is this it then? Is this to be the confrontation that ruins him?  
  
“It’s not that, Newt,” he lies, experience making the words so fluid he can almost believe them himself. “It’s simply that I want to be sure I’m making the right choice, for myself and for whoever I’d be committing to.”  
  
Newt hums his understanding and looks away, and Percival wonders what the hell had prompted him to make such an offer out of the blue like that. For one wild moment he thinks of confessing everything, laying it all bare between them and seeing where that took them. He’s a coward though, and he can’t bear the thought of losing the one true intimacy he has in Newt’s friendship. If it can’t be all that he might want it to be, well, at least he can class the man a true friend.  
  
“I never believed in your reputation, you know,” Newt says suddenly, his eyes on the branches of the peach tree that sighs in the wind outside the window. “I was told you were a bit of a cad actually, a man of many promises and possibly unscrupulous affairs. Though in the time I’ve known you I’ve never seen any evidence of the sort. In fact-” Newt turns to look at him, and Percival feels himself pinned in place by the man’s stare. “In fact I’ve rather come to believe the opposite.”  
  
He really could confess now. It would be the perfect opportunity to speak his piece, make his arguments, explain in his own time, his own terms, the truth of what he feels. And yet he’s spent so many years in careful hiding Percival can’t bring himself to do it. Angry with his own predictable inability, Percival’s tone is sharper than he intends when he replies, “Then why make such a foolish suggestion? Were you joking?”  
  
Newt doesn’t seem surprised by the note of accusation in Percival’s voice, but he does lower his gaze for a moment before looking up at him again. “No.”  
  
Percival stares at him, and outside the autumn breeze taps the branches of the peach tree against the window as though to distract them. He can feel the tension in his body, the certainty that something bad is afoot here. Something that can’t possibly end well for either of them. If Newt wants marriage between them, then- for a second he considers it. The possibility of it, of a life spent together with a man that for all intents and purposes understands him completely. In every way except the one, the most fundamental aspect of his person that no-one but Percival himself knows. Can anyone live with a lie like that? If he had to do so with anyone then perhaps he could do so with Newt.  
  
“I rather thought you might consider it an option to help you find the space you need. After all, there’ll be no more offers of marriage if you have already accepted an engagement,” Newt says.  
  
Percival laughs, short and full of disbelief. “But that can’t be right, what about you? What if you were to find a suitor you truly felt something for? This would only hurt your prospects!”  
  
Newt looks back at him steadily and shrugs. “I don’t think that would be a problem,” he replies softly, and in his words Percival reads the truth of the matter.  
  
“I...see,” Percival says quietly. It’s true then. There is interest there, more than just friendship. The possibility of something much more, offered in true all or nothing style by a man who seems to know no other way. “Newt, I…”  
  
“Percival,” Newt says quickly, and this time he smiles, although the expression seems touched with brittleness. “I was just thinking aloud really, there’s no need to take it so seriously! I was just- it was just a silly idea.”  
  
He’s embarrassed now, properly embarrassed for having offered and been rejected rather than for phrasing something too awkwardly, and Percival feels himself despair. This isn’t how he’d wanted to broach any such subject with Newt, not like this, not with such awkwardness. “Newt,” he says. “Please listen to me, will you?”  
  
Newt looks sideways at him, uncertainty in his expression, as though he suspects a harder blow, and Percival only just keeps the wince from his face. “I think,” he says. “I think there’s something we should...talk about. I think I need to just, possibly, explain a few things. Will you listen?”  
  
“Of course,” Newt says immediately.  
  
Percival nods. “Right. Right then.” Suddenly breathless, he meets Newt’s gaze and thinks, right, god damn it, now or never. “You’re right, I do have a reputation and...you’re actually right that it’s not really, well. What you’ve seen is indeed all there is, or at least as good as.” He pauses, aware that he’s likely making no sense, and finds Newt watching him carefully. Percival sighs. “I’m afraid I’m probably going to disappoint you.”  
  
Newt nods to some inner decision, and then puts down the books he’d been sorting through. He smooths his palms over the folds in his shirt and then looks up at Percival again. “I think assumptions are probably the greatest enemy, don’t you? Perhaps we ought to not make any?”  
  
Assumptions are something Percival has lived his entire life fighting, and he can still feel the weight of them bearing down on him now. “For what it’s worth, I do rather like the sound of your plan.” He offers what he hopes is a reassuring smile and then hesitates, searching for a way to start, only to find himself floundering. God this is hard. “Perhaps a fresh bottle of wine and we can settle down to ah, to sort this out?”  
  
“If that would help,” Newt agrees, and something about the expression on his face, the kindness of it, makes something ease in Percival’s chest. It’s not kindness he wants really, it’s just someone to sit and listen and not judge.   
  
Newt smiles, and Percival thinks maybe this won’t be too bad after all.


End file.
